Agent skill · shipshitdev
why
Investigate why code is shaped the way it is. Use for design rationale, regressions, postmortems, or data-backed thresholds. Queries available evidence categories in parallel, then returns a cited read on decisions and tradeoffs. Use how for runtime behavior.
What it needs
About 2k tokens when loaded.
What this skill does
Why Investigate the motivation behind code. Companion to how. how answers what the code does. why answers what forces led to its shape. Historical context spreads across seven evidence categories. Enumerate available connectors at run time, query every available category in parallel, then synthesize with explicit confidence calibration. A null result is first-class evidence. Contract Inputs: A why-question about a chunk of code, pattern, feature, or named decision Outputs: A confidence-separated, cited narrative with a coverage map Creates/Modifies: None External Side Effects: Read-only git, gh, and available issue/docs/chat/observability connectors. No writes. Confirmation Required: None Delegates To: None. May spawn one investigator per evidence category, then one synthesizer. Operating posture Evidence before narrative. Precision over polish. Quote and cite. Name the gaps. Hedge when evidence is indirect. Do not infer intent from code shape alone. Read references/epistemics.md before synthesizing. Step 1. Understand the target Parse the question. If the target is vague, state the best guess from conversation context and proceed. Step 2. Establish the code anchor Before spawning investigators, gather file paths, line ranges, key symbols, recent commits, and PR numbers. Pass this seed to every investigator. Step 3. Spawn parallel investigators Discover available connectors (MCP servers, CLIs, APIs). Map each to one category from references/evidence-categories.md. Source control is always available through git and gh. Launch one investigator per available category in a single message, on the fast cheap tier. Do not use a read-only sandbox that strips connectors. Investigators still write nothing. Skip a category only with a written justification: no connector available, or the source is provably irrelevant. "Probably irrelevant" is not enough. Each investigator gets references/investigator-prompt.md, its category playbook, the code anchor, and the user's question. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills shipshitdev/why